Lamonts and Bushes in Connecticut: Similar Family Pedigrees

They inhabit distant points on the political spectrum. But in one sense, privileged family pedigree, President George W. Bush and Ned Lamont, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Connecticut, could not be more alike.

For starters, their forebears were inducted into America’s ruling class at roughly the same time and place: Wall Street during the waning days of the robber barons a century ago.

Over the subsequent decades, the two families co-existed in strikingly similar universes: Rockefeller and Morgan; Exeter and Andover; Yale and Harvard; progressive Republicanism in Connecticut and New York; the Round Hill Club in Greenwich; and the island haven of North Harbor off the coast of Maine.

Along the way, the two men’s political paths diverged, sharply. But that has not prevented Bushes and Lamonts from socializing today in elite circles that still value grace and civility, where personal loyalty can trump partisan patrimony.